3. Statement by the First Minister: Delivering the International Strategy

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:56 pm on 11 November 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 3:56, 11 November 2020

I thank Mandy Jones for those questions. Well, I think Wales is the brand, and that the approach we take to the Cymru-Wales brand is exactly that—to make Wales itself the brand that we use to communicate with the rest of the world. I'm happy to supply the Member with the latest material that we are using in order to do that.

I agree with what the Member said about being able to look for opportunities where they emerge. We certainly did that in relation to cycling, for example, another sport where the rise to international prominence of a Welsh winner of the Tour de France has given us new opportunities to make sure that Wales is known in that sport, and that sport in its international dimension. We've brought more cycling events here to Wales. We're talking whether there are further opportunities we may be able to use, in the way that Mandy Jones suggested, looking for those opportunities as they happen. We have to work with others, that is for sure. I referred to the Belfast homecoming; that was a collaboration that we had with a member of the—well, there was no Executive at the time, but someone who'd been a member of the Northern Ireland Executive. And we've had discussions with Scotland. For example, we have presence in some parts of the world where they don't; they equally have presence in some parts of the world where Wales doesn't have an office. We've talked about how we can use those things collaboratively to promote one another's work where that would make sense for us both.

Thank you for what you said about the envoy initiative. I think colleagues who look at the list of names will see that, while some of them are people who come from Wales, brought up in Wales, now in other parts of the world, some of them are people who are from other parts of the world but have worked here in Wales, and that sense of the diaspora is very important. We're not simply talking about people who are from Wales themselves. We are talking about people who have a fondness for Wales, an association with Wales, an interest in being able to promote Wales in other parts of the world. When I was in Tokyo for the Rugby World Cup, I met the president of Clwb Hiraeth. So, Clwb Hiraeth is a group of Japanese businesspeople who have spent part of their careers here in Wales. They're now back in Japan. The president is in his 80s and worked in Sony Bridgend 40 years ago, but the warmth of his memory of being in Wales was absolutely palpable, and his presidency of Clwb Hiraeth is an example of how we can use not just people from Wales in other parts of the world, but people in other parts of the world who have experience of being here in Wales and bring all of that to wanting to promote and work alongside us, and our envoys will be drawn—some of them will be drawn from that group as well.